A SEVEN-MAN gang, smashed by the police in Lagos yesterday, has recounted how its members shot dead, a Coca-Cola Bottling Company manager in the Mafoluku area of the state on Sunday. The victim, 37-year-old Adedapo Owolabi Adesanya, a father of three, was shot in the neck at close range, as he was about to drive his Honda car into his compound on Osundeyi Street, Mafoluku. Adesanya had just returned from Ibadan, where his wife and children stay, when the gang cornered him on the street. Residents claimed that the bandits first shot the victim’s hand, before they riddled his car with bullets, as he tried to escape. Under the rain of bullets, the victim’s car ran into a dish and one of the robbers went close to the car and shot him in the neck.
He died on the spot. They left without taking anything from him. One eyewitness said: “The time was between 9:30 and 10pm. When we heard the shootings, we all started running. They were in a bus. It was like those buses plying the Airport route. They shot him on the hand, his car entered gutter, then they went after him and killed him there.” Another eyewitness said she heard a sort of argument and had stepped out briefly from her room to know what was going on. When she saw it was a commercial bus filled with men and Adesanya who she knew very well, she felt they would soon settle the dispute.She said: ” I went back to my room, within few seconds, a heard a shot.
They killed him.” When the bandits left Mafoluku, they moved toward Ipaja, robbed a man of his laptop and told him to quickly submit his valuables before they kill him the way they had just killed a man at Mafoluku. It was this victim, who later made a report at the police station. According to the police, the bandits ended their journey at an isolated area in Ipaja, where they began to share their loot. Ihat was where the gang was smashed by policemen attached to the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), who had received the distress call with a description of the bus surprised them. When the policemen stormed the hideout, the bandits scampered into various directions, except for Samson Babatunde, 30, who was behind the wheel. After he was arrested, he took policemen to a place where another suspect, Akpan Benlu Sunday, was arrested.
According to Babatunde, it was Sunday who fired the killer shot. Sunday however denied, as he too accused another suspect, Wasiu, who is still at large. Babatunde, who spoke at the police headquarters, in Ikeja, Lagos, confessed to have gone with the gang several times to assist them carry stolen goods. He said: ‘ Sunday was not at the steering with me! None of them used to be with me. Ihey are all operations men. It was Wasiu that brought the gun. He is a sharp shooter. It was not Wasiu that shot. It was Sunday. When we get Wasiu, you’ll see that I am telling the truth. It was Sunday that shot. If I am telling lies, may God never allow me to get out of this trouble. What I saw was that the man wanted to drive into his compound, when Sunday shot him.
They didn’t even collect anything from the man. Ihe man was just driving out. I don’t know the make of his car. But it was a small car. I heard the gunshot. It was Sunday that shot. Wasiu came and asked me to move. By then the man Sunday shot had driven into a gutter. The car plunged into the gutter.” The police also paraded a taxi driver, who loaded 60 AK 47 rifles and 2660 pieces of ammunition in three bags of beans found in the cab.